August 20, 2016 - Blueberry Festival

Oops.  It's been a while since I have posted. I have been traveling a lot in places where they don't have volkswalks. But I'm inspired by today's great walk.

Our club decided to do a group walk or guided walk on our Girdwood YRE. We picked today because the Blueberry Festival is taking place. We used to have event walks during the Blueberry Festival, but it got to be too much work to organize that, so we are accomplishing almost the same thing by walking the YRE.

We brought Merle with us. She is visiting here from Pennsylvania and wanted to get out of town today. This was her first experience with volkswalking, and I think she had a good time.

On the way down to Girdwood we saw a pod of Beluga whales in Turnagain Arm. It is so much fun to see them, but it's hard to take pictures from a car going 60 miles an hour.

We arrived in Girdwood after a 45-minute drive and headed for the Alyeska Resort, our start point. About 20 people showed up to walk. Upon starting we divided up into two groups - one to walk the 10k, and one to walk the 5k.

The 5k walk follows a little woodsy trail along a creek, eventually arriving at a gravel airstrip. The weather was absolutely beautiful and we had stunning views of mountains and glaciers.

We continued through a subdivision where we admired some homes with gorgeous flower gardens and lots of charming cozy-looking cabins.

Eventually we reached the main road and crossed over to the Jade Shop.

Approaching the Jade Shop

A  trail behind the Jade Shop took us over a silty, glacial creek, and there were more views of glaciers.



We soon arrived at the Alyeska Bake Shop where we were greeted by a bounty of flower pots, boxes, and hanging baskets.

Part of the 5k contingent

Finally, we followed the bike path back up the road toward the Alyeska Resort. We started to pass blueberry bushes, but there were very few blueberries to be found.

As the bike path led us through a tunnel to another trail near the back of the resort we began to see little groups of blueberry pickers. There were a few berries right by the side of the trail that no one had found yet and we ate them!

Very soon after that we arrived at the resort. The walk was now over but it was time to explore all the booths that had been set up for the Blueberry Festival.

I got a quesadilla at one of the booths. (I am writing about this to remind myself not to go to that booth next year. The quesadilla was not that good. While I was waiting for it, I watched a customer walk up to the counter, reach over and stick her hand into a bowl of shredded cheese, and grab a handful to add to the plate of food she had just purchased. This was the cheese the cooks were adding to people's food. She was not supposed to take any, and she was definitely not supposed to stick her hand into the bowl of cheese. I was horrified because I could see what she was going to do and I yelled "No, no, no" but she did it anyway. I told the people working there and they said customers are not supposed to touch the food and I said yes, but they are doing it, what are you going to do about it? I suspect they have not changed the way they operate.)

By the time we left the Blueberry Festival, there was a huge traffic jam trying to get into the parking lot. There was a line of cars backed up all the way from the Resort to the "T" and from the "T" all the way down to Crow Creek Road. Make sure you go EARLY if you go next year.

Route: B+ if you do this YRE on a gorgeous day during the Blueberry Festival